The Great Waltz **** (1938, Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravey, Miliza Korjus, Hugh Herbert, Lionel Atwill) – Classic Movie Review 10,477

MGM’s life of Johann Strauss Jr – the splendid 1938 musical biopic film The Great Waltz – gets the lavish production and high-flying European stars.

‘Your beating heart, your pounding pulse will tell you it’s the most exciting musical love story ever told! ‘

The 1938 biographical musical drama film The Great Waltz is directed by Julien Duvivier, Victor Fleming (uncredited) and Josef von Sternberg (uncredited), and stars Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravey and Miliza Korjus, with a screenplay by Samuel Hoffenstein and Walter Reisch based on the original story by Gottfried Reinhardt.

MGM’s splendid life of Johann Strauss Jr (a pet project of studio boss Louis B Mayer who liked his music) gets the lavish production and some high-flying European stars. France’s Fernand Gravey [Fernand Gravet] is Strauss Jr in a triangular love tussle with his wife Poldi Vogelhuber (Luise Rainer) and a femme fatale, Carla Donner (Miliza Korjus), in 1845 Vienna.

Warsaw-born soprano Miliza Korjus, signed by MGM to a 10-year film contract on the strength of her records, stars in her only American film, oddly so, you would think, because her trilling of the tunes (with Oscar Hammerstein II words) is the movie’s highspot, and she was Oscar nominated as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. On 28 May 1940, two weeks before the start of her next MGM film Guns and Fiddles, she was seriously injured in an car accident. After months in hospital, with numerous operations and bone grafts, she recovered use of her crushed left leg. In summer 1941 she started a concert tour of South America in Mexico, where she decided to remain for the duration of the war, and made her one other film there, Imperial Cavalry (1942).

Russian-born cameraman Joseph Ruttenberg won the first of his four Oscars for Best Cinematography (followed by Mrs Miniver (1942), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and Gigi (1958).

The songs include: ‘I’m in Love with Vienna’, ‘One Day when We Were Young’. ‘There’ll Come a Time’, and ‘Du Und Du’.

Artur Gutmann is musical director, the lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, the music adaptor and arranger of the Johann Strauss II music is by Dimitri Tiomkin. Earl Covert and Ralph Leon are voice doubles for Fernand Gravey. Alice Mock is vocal stand-in for Miliza Korjus. The dances and ensembles are by Albertina Rasch. Russian virtuoso violinist Toscha Seidel dubs the solos for Fernand Gravey) and began a new career as a concert master at MGM and other studios.

Also in the cast are Hugh Herbert as Hofbauer, Lionel Atwill as Count Hohenfried, Curt Bois, Leonid Kinskey, Al Shean, Minna Gombell, Greta Meyer, Herman Bing, Alma Kruger, Henry Hull, Sig Ruman, Christian Rub, George Houston and Bert Roach.

Victor Fleming (uncredited) is the director of retakes. The gowns are by Adrian.

It is remade by director Andrew L Stone in 1972 as The Great Waltz, this time starring Horst Buchholz as the composer Johann Strauss Jr.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,477

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